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It was not what I expected to hear from my counseling professor in seminary so I stopped doodling in my notebook and paid close attention.

“When you are with a couple, or a family, and what they are saying to you or to each other makes no sense to you, stop listening. Just look at them. Pay attention to how they sit – who is near and who is far. Look at how they move, toward or away from one another.”

Did you get what you wanted for Christmas? Perhaps Christmas is a time to reflect on the life of Jesus and instead of getting and keeping, a better approach may be, “Did you let go of what you needed to this Christmas?” If not for Christmas, then why not let it go for New Years?

As I cut open the post Christmas boxes, I realized how much I love stuff. As a reminder of the importance of balance in my own life, I pulled out my book Enough. As a helpful post Christmas reminder, here is the first chapter. Click on the picture or the following link:

Some languages have it easier. The Greeks have more than one word for love. They have eros, philio, agape. Those choices seem to have suited them well. Yet, to write in English, I haven’t found a lot of help in substituting Greek or any other unfamiliar words. To explore love in the mind of Jesus, in the psychology of Jesus and how he loved rather than new words for ‘love,’ I propose in Jesus that we see love in two forms, two types, two kinds which are both familiar and universal.

What we can learn from Herod…

When Herod met the Magi at the palace in Jerusalem, neither had met the infant Messiah. Both were experiencing their perceptions of who and what he might be. Herod is a vivid illustration of what the philosopher Epictetus observed, People are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them. The Primary Concept for us is: People and events don’t bother us, but our perceptions of them do.